Review: Breville Fast Slow Cooker

by Kimberly Hickok

I am completely, totally and madly in love with the newest addition to my kitchen arsenal – the Breville Fast Slow Cooker. What makes it so awesome? It’s a slow cooker, pressure cooker and steamer with . . . wait for it . . . a Sear/Saute setting. Yeah, you heard me.

We all know that browning food makes it more flavorful but it’s a real pain in the neck to brown everything first and then put it in the slow cooker. Isn’t the whole point of a slow cooker throwing everything into the same pot without having to dirty another pot on the stove top?? With the sear/saute setting, you can brown things right in the Breville Fast Slow Cooker and then finish cooking your meal using whichever method of cooking you want. If you’ve got lots of time, you can use the slow cooker setting. In a hurry? Use the pressure cooker setting.

Breville Fast Slow Cooker

Isn’t it pretty?

I’ve had the Breville Fast Slow Cooker for about three weeks and have only used the sear and pressure cooker settings. This is my impression of the Breville Fast Slow Cooker so far.

  • The settings and timer are easy to program.
  • The sear setting is great. It gets hot fast allowing you to get items sauteed and browned very quickly.

So far I’ve used it twice – once to make short ribs and another time to make beef shanks. I started off using the sear setting and then pressure cooked the meat.

Searing short ribs in Breville Fast Slow Cooker

I was able to brown 3 1/2 pounds of short ribs – in batches – in about 15 minutes.

Beef shanks seared using Breville Fast Slow Cooker

I made beef shanks for Mark and I. I was able to brown both sides in about 8 minutes.

  • The 6-quart removable non-stick cooking bowl is big enough to cook for a crowd. I had no problem cooking 3 1/2 pounds of short ribs. I could have easily doubled the recipe.
  • The pressure cooker setting really does speed up cooking time. Short ribs usually take a good three hours in the oven and at least six in the slow cooker. These were done in an hour and 15 minutes – including the time it took to brown the meat.
  • Cleanup is easy.
  • The plastic gasket on the inside of the lid can be a little tricky to put back after cleaning. I’m not mechanically inclined so it took me a few tries before I realized that the ‘Top’ arrows on the gasket meant that the gasket need to face away from the lid, not toward the top of the lid.
  • Also there’s a pin on the back left of the lid that needs to move freely for the pressure setting to work. I made a batch of brown rice and I think some of the starch made the pin stick so I couldn’t get it to come up to pressure. Once I figured that out, I had no problems since.

All in all, I would highly recommend the Breville Fast Slow Cooker. It retails for $179. I picked mine up at my local kitchen store, Spoon and Whisk. I think it’s more than worth the price, especially when you consider that it has the functionality of at last three, if not more, appliances – pressure cooker, slow cooker, steamer, rice cooker. I like that this tool gives me options, especially since I’m not that good at meal planning in advance.

I couldn’t be more pleased with the results as you can see from the pics below.

Short Ribs - Falling Apart

Both the short ribs (top) and beef shanks (bottom) were fall off the bone tender in 45 minutes.

Both the short ribs (top) and beef shanks (bottom) were fall off the bone tender in 45 minutes.

Here’s a link to the Breville Fast Slow Cooker on Amazon. (This is an affiliate link. If you use this link to purchase this item, I receive a small commission.)

 

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2 comments

Short Ribs Mount Vernon - Kimversations March 4, 2014 - 10:31 pm

[…] The only thing I vary is the method I use to prepare them. Most of the time I bake them in the oven or cook them in the slow cooker but I recently purchased a Breville Fast Slow Cooker and am thrilled that they can be prepared in a little over an hour using the pressure cooker setting. […]

Reply
Ep 30 Kim from Kimversations | A Real Food Journey June 16, 2014 - 2:11 pm

[…] A Searing, Fast Slow Cooker […]

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